On TWiT last week, Mr. Dvorak made the sarcastic comment that Illustrators and Photographers think that Copyright is all about them.

It is John. (more…)

Blunt Tactics (that just might work)

There is a great injustice being perpetrated right now, as we speak…all over the country. Thousands of people are lighting up, toking, puffing…whatever you want to call it, all over the US. While being an alcoholic is a requirement for some vocations-an author in the British Isles for example-if you were to tell anyone except for your connection and your closest friends that you smoke the reefer, you might end up a pariah. A tad duplicitous, a bit unfair, but years of propaganda & misinformation are hard to counteract. So why isn’t it legal? Thats an all-day History Channel Marathon question, so I am going to skip it and move on to my modest solution. (more…)

Full Disclosure: I am a spacemonkey for Obama. Completely.

Today, Barack Obama made the most astute observation about a certain section of disenfranchised Americans that I have ever heard. In discussing small towns in PA he said:

“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothings replaced them, and they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

He might have been talking about most of WV, where that mentality of us-against-them is ingrained and passed on at the dinner table. It isn’t a matter of a few people in my home town who believe that they have no say in the government or no chance at a healthier job market here. They are the rule, people who see past the local implications of economic policy are the exceptions. But this is not a recent attitude here, this is a matter of culture.

The bitterness is a reality, and since the way before the first Bush Presidency, we have been told about the future of the job market, and then NAFTA passes or economic incentives to send jobs oversees come into effect. It is a deep understanding of our frustration that Obama is speaking from, and the implications on our culture that result. Ironically, the socially conservative facets that he mentioned are what drove this state red in 2000 and 2004, even though we West Virginians were negatively impacted on almost every federal interaction. We benefited only in income to our disproportionately high soldiering population, from which both Jessica Lynch & Lynndie England come.

We should support that honesty, and expect it from our politicians… Especially our Presidential Candidates.

What is it about the 24hr news cycle that loves a good fight? Around the world, there is genocide, war, famine but all CNN can cover is “Ballot Bowl” further shaping the sports metaphor to all things news. There seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding about what matters in a Presidential candidate.

• Presidents don’t write laws. The constitution grants this power to congress, that is their job. If a Commander-in-Chief wants legislation passed-like a vote to invade Iraq and Declare War if certain criteria are not met-he or she must write it or have it written and pass it through both houses of Congress. The Iraq war vote-written at the request of the President-was not a declaration of War, but a blank check to declare at any time.
• Presidents don’t operate in a Vacuum. There can be as many as 3,000 positions that a president is responsible for filling with appointees when entering office. Consider just the ones that require Congressional “advice and consent”: “Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law” US Constitution, Article 2 Section 2. This also includes the Presidents “cabinet” of trusted advisers. In other words, if you have an agenda, you could populate a large portion of the government, all 3 branches, with people to help.
• It is the President’s Job to enforce laws. As the Chief Executive, his or her primary job is to enforce the laws as passed by Congress. No Exceptions. Which is why Signing statements just burn my ass. A President may oppose a bill by Vetoing it, or can sign it into law.
• A President doesn’t have to know everything. That is what his cabinet and the rest of his staff is for. Reagan didn’t know as much about the economy as the Chairman of the Fed(another appointee), Alan Greenspan, but trusted him with the health and growth of the economy as far as the lending rate could influence it. When Sen. McCain admitted that he didn’t understand the economy, it was honest and I don’t believe that you can completely understand our economic system. That said, he better have several people on staff that do if he is elected.

When the next President is elected, his or her first job is finding people with a like-mind, whether open, partisan, political or otherwise to help us all through the mess we are in. We are voting for mind-set, philosophy, strength and character.

I am just putting it out there… discuss.